The ending of Part 2 might have seemed abrupt.  It was meant to be.

We considered the scientists’ Big Bang creation model in Part 2—its historical development, what it is, and its implication.  We concluded with four scriptures that have astounding similarities with one aspect of the model—the stretching of space. And we concluded with a fifth verse, our old friend Psalms 19:2.  Except this time we were able to explain how “the expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”

I ended Part 2 at that point, hoping the significance of the previous verses would sink deeply into your soul and that God would be glorified through His creation.

Parts 3 and 4 present “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say on his popular radio broadcasts.  How did scientists receive the Big Bang theory?  How was it evaluated?  Do modern astrophysical studies support it?  What has been its influence upon the church?

The format for Parts 3 and 4 will follow the four questions I just posed.  And be prepared for surprises!

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How Was the Big Bang Theory Received by the Scientists?

That’s simple.  Most of them HATED IT!

I shared in Part 2 that by the early 1900’s many scientists were atheists.  They took great comfort in the Kant-Newton Infinite Universe model, which defined the universe as static and infinite in time and space.  Universal expansion from a singular beginning point, as suggested by the Big Bang theory, obliterated the Kant-Newton model.

But it went even deeper.  If the universe had a beginning, from nothing, then Something transcendent to the universe must have initiated it.  And although the logical definition of that Something was God, it was an unbearable definition for the atheists.  The scientific community quickly divided itself into different groups:  Many despised the expanding universe model and sought to disprove it; others honestly gathered and researched the data to assess the model’s feasibility; and still others flipped back and forth with the current interpretations.  This was uncharted territory—even for Albert Einstein.  As shared in Part 2, he added the cosmological constant to his field equations to “cancel out” the implied expansion of the universe and comply with the Kant-Newton model.  Later, and with more data, he called it “the greatest blunder of his life.”

Many of the opposed scientists diligently searched for and proposed alternative models, a loophole, or an error in the math.  And their efforts continue today. I’ve included a few memorable quotes from Big Bang opponents from over a four-decade period.  Notice their prestigious titles:

Sir Arthur Eddington; Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge (Figure 1)

“Philosophically the notion of a beginning of the present order is repugnant to me. I should like to find a genuine loophole. I simply do not believe the present order of things started off with a bang…the expanding Universe is preposterous… it leaves me cold… We allow evolution an infinite time to get started.”  (Nature 127, 1931)

 Sir Fred Hoyle; Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge (Figure 2)

“The attribution of definite age to the Universe, whatever it might be, is to exalt the concept of time above the Universe, and since the Universe is everything this is crackpot in itself.“  (Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1982; The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.)

(This was Hoyle’s view in the 1940’s.  He was the originator in 1949 of the derisive term “Big Bang;¹” to reflect his disagreement with the model.)

John Gribbin; Astrophysicist and Editor of the journal Nature (Figure 3)
“The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is philosophical – perhaps even theological – what was there before the bang. This problem alone was sufficient to give great impetus to the Steady State theory. But with that theory now sadly in conflict with the observations, the best way around this initial difficulty is provided by a model in which the universe expands from a singularity, collapses back again, and repeats the cycle indefinitely.” (Nature, 1976)

How Was the Big Bang Theory Evaluated?

Other scientists began to earnestly investigate the concept of an expanding universe.  Much of their research “ran the clock backwards” toward the Creation Event to understand and numerically model how time, space, energy, and mass (atoms) behaved at the ultra-high temperatures.

Huge sums of money were spent on these research endeavors.  The original “atom smasher,” the Cosmotron, was constructed and operated at Brookhaven National Laboratory (NY; 1953-1966; see Blog #6, God’s Character as Viewed Through Science: Omnipresence (Part 1).  These and later, more powerful accelerators (e.g. the RHIC; Brookhaven, NY) energized atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and crashed them into other target atoms, splitting the atoms into their sub-atomic particles.  Unfathomably complex numerical models were constructed to explain the stability of the atom at greatly elevated temperatures.

A high-level summary of the progressive scientific discoveries that supported the Big Bang theory, their dates, and the opposing models are provided below, concluding with a defining scientific breakthrough:

Perhaps the most important discoveries from over seven decades of research were made by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, launched Nov. 18, 1989 (Figure 4).  Around 1950, numerical models had predicted that the first measurable energy from the Big Bang would have been released at about 300,000 years after the initiation event, and relics of the energy should be present today as a background microwave source.¹ In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the cosmic background (CMB) radiation as an omnidirectional signal in the microwave band.  This provided huge confirmation of the Big Bang model predictions and the scientists received the Nobel Prize.

Other predictive research performed during the 1970’s suggested that the expanding universe must behave similarly to a physical object called a “blackbody²”—an entity which absorbs all incoming radiation and emits thermogenic energy at a very precise temperature.  The models predicted the universal temperature of the blackbody background radiation (think of it as the temperature in deep space) should be around 2.72° Kelvin (or, about -270° C).  In 1990, the COBE satellite precisely measured the residual temperature as 2.726° Kelvin.  In 1992, tiny fluctuations (anisotropies) in the CMB temperature that corresponded to about 1 part in 10,000 – again within model predictions—were mapped “universally” by COBE (Figure 5). ³   I remember this famous figure, published in numerous journals, though I did not appreciate its significance at the time.  Even more accurate measurements were eventually made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP satellite) in 2003.  What was the scientific response to these discoveries?  Here are a few quotes from scientists across the astrophysical landscape:

• “Unbelievably important… They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology” Michael Turner (University of Chicago)
• “It is the discovery of the century, if not all time” Stephen Hawking (Cambridge University, UK)
• “What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe. It’s like looking at God.” George Smoot (UC Berkeley – COBE project leader)

These and many other discoveries have established from a scientific perspective the Big Bang as the leading model for the creation of the universe.  Figures 6a and 6b show a 2003 image from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field telescope. ⁴ Figure 6a covers an area of the sky in the Formax constellation, just south of Orion, that is about 1/10^th of the diameter of the moon when viewed from earth.  It includes about 10,000 galaxies—those with orange hues are estimated to be around 13 billion years old (or formed about 800 million years after the Big Bang).  Figure 6b shows an expanded sub-area from Figure 6a.  The small, dark red structures are believed to be hydrogen-rich protogalaxies that formed only 400-600 million years after the Big Bang and again, fit within the model predictions.  However, many scientists still refute the model because of the theological implications of God as the Creator.

As much as some scientists dislike the Big Bang model, others now agree it is the valid choice.  Consider the following text from the 2016 Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider webpage (see Figure 7; the site has since been greatly expanded and restructured) where much of the sub-atomic particle research was performed:

“The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is a world-class scientific research facility that began operation in 2000, following 10 years of development and construction. Hundreds of physicists from around the world use RHIC to study what the universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its creation.”

Notice that the word “creation” was selected rather than “formation” or “initiation!”

Part 4 will conclude this series on the Creation Event.  Many recent discoveries in astrophysics have led the open-minded scientists to a Creator.  The incredibly small tolerances required by physical parameters in the Big Bang model that “just happen” to be met are especially significant. I’ll share a few of these and the scientists’ responses.  Finally, we’ll conclude and summarize how these discoveries have influenced the church.  And, we’ll take note of the Satanic fingerprints that once again are evident.

¹Wikipedia; Big Bang; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

²Wikipedia; Black Body; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body

³Wikipedia; Cosmic Background Explorer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Background_Explorer

⁴Wikipedia; Hubble Ultra Deep Field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field

Figure 1. Arthur Eddington’s intense dislike of the Big Bang theory (reference included in slide).

Figure 2. Fred Hoyle’s intense dislike of the Big Bang theory (reference included in slide).

Figure 3. John Gribbin’s intense dislike of the Big Bang theory (reference included in slide).

Figure 4. NASA website summary of COBE satellite, program, and discoveries. From NASA; Goddard Space Flight Center: https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/cobe/. The lower figure is a pre-launch image of the COBE satellite (from Wikipedia; Cosmic Background Explorer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Background_Explorer).

Figure 5. The famous 1992 universal COBE map of the cosmic background radiation anisotropies.

Figure 6a. Hubble Space Telescope Ultra Deep-Field (HUDF) image of nearly 10,000 galaxies within a tiny fragment of the total sky (approximately 1/10th of the full moon diameter when viewed from earth, or a 1 mm square on a piece of paper held one meter away. The NASA description is included below. The white square outlines an expanded area shown in Figure 6b.

Figure 6b. Expanded sub-area from Figure 6a. The spiral and elliptical galaxies with an orange hue are about 13 billion years; whereas the small, dark red structures are believed to be hydrogen-rich proto-galaxies that formed only 400-600 million years after the Big Bang.

Figure 7. 2016 webpage for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (NY). The website has since been greatly expanded and rewritten (yellow shading of the text is mine – JRC).